Georgie lived for secrets. She spent hours lying in wait, or standing, or crouching, in wait just to hear them. Mastering the quirks of the house, learning which stairs creaked and which walls were the thinnest. The servants never noticing a slip of skirt visible under the curtains, too eager to scandalize each other with tales of the night before. Her father too, was unaware, having drunk too much scotch with her uncle to notice that certain important papers were missing from his study. Her mother would often find her, edges blurred by dust, in the bottom of a wardrobe or packed neatly under a desk.
The mother thought it was harmless, Georgie was just a little girl whose hero was Sherlock Holmes. She couldn't see the menace in the blonde curls, looping there like a snake ready to pounce.
Georgie knew the power of secrets, knew that once you had them, the world became easier. As she grew up, she held her vast library of unknown information behind her eyes, and no one could see it lurking there, threatening to get out.
She saved them until her mother became insufferable, he father threatened her with useless marriages, the servants stopped fawning over the once adorable child. One sweltering afternoon, when rain hovered but never fell, she unleashed them like a hurricane, all together, one secret building upon the strength of the last, wind whipping them into an unstoppable storm of pain and guilt.
Georgie did not marry. She went to live with her brazen young aunt in Paris, in a house that was filled with it's own set of locked doors and shadowy corners. They didn't matter of course. She would learn their tricks, open them up, store their secrets in her ever shimmering eyes, her luminous hair. Waiting.
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